Brian Stults wrote:
Here is one concern of theirs, though, that I don't understand. They said one problem with linux is that it will trick their network into thinking that my linux box is the main server, thus bringing down a system of over 2000 users. I cannot imagine how this would happen. Theonly thing I can think of is the issue of the master browser in samba. If it is "elected", I suppose my machine could force itself to be theserver. I don't know enough about samba, though, to know if this is possible. However, if I don't run a samba server, it wouldn't be a problem, right? Can anyone else think of why this might happen?
I'm willing to be that's exactly what they're talking about. There was quite a to do about this a year or so ago when it happened at some large company which then banned linux. I believe you have to explicitly tell samba in the config file to become the master browser though... I don't think being elected is a problem. However, I'm not a samba expert either...
The only other similar problem I can think of is vmware related. At one point, I was running vmware on a Mandrake 6.0 (or 6.1?) box and it caused a packet storm while I was on vacation (probably my fault for leaving vmware running while I was on vacation). I never figured out for sure what the problem was but I'm pretty sure it was vmware's fault (vmware 1.x).